Part-Time Indian Essay

Identity shows a person’s individuality. A person’s individuality can include how they dress, their beliefs, their personality traits, the way they speak, their culture, their education, etc. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and in my own life, it is evident that when exploring identity, a character must leave and return to his/her roots before truly understanding him/herself.

Arnold finds out who he is by leaving and later coming back to Rowdy. In the last scene, before Arnold and Rowdy played their one-on-one basketball game, Arnold and Rowdy repair their lost friendship. It is then that Arnold thinks, “I would always love Rowdy. And I would always miss him too.” (230) This quote shows how Arnold realizes that he is different from Rowdy. To begin, he has always valued his friendship with Rowdy and so he says that he “would always love Rowdy.” Even when Arnold had a disagreement with Rowdy when heading to Reardan for a better education, he still thought of how Rowdy would defend him. However, by the end of the book, Arnold realizes that he will have to “miss” Rowdy because their dreams make them too different from each other. Therefore, Arnold discovers that his life can still include Rowdy, who has been his friend since the beginning, however, he cannot rely on Rowdy to be with him always. By the end of the book, Arnold has returned to Rowdy as a stronger and independent person.

Similarly, I found my true identity after leaving and returning to my family. Growing up, I came from a home that was traditionally Chinese. We did not easily express our emotions, we were not allowed to date until after college, and being successful at school would ultimately bring honor to my family. Though these beliefs were deeply ingrained in everything I did, a rebellious side of me wanted to discover what it meant to be American as well. Why were the other families so expressive and communicative towards each other? What mattered beyond...

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...﻿Guadalupe Lopez
Professor Brett Bisceglia
English 99
18 September 2014
Word Count: 1011
A Part-TimeIndian: His Success
As an Indian from a reservation, Junior faces a lot of racism, poverty, being surrounded by alcoholics and physical abuse. Junior also faces loss and bullying. As a result, a lot of events happen in his life which are both internal and external. Junior has different ways to cope internally. He uses jokes and his drawing and stories to help him get by. Meanwhile, externally, his family and friends help him along the way. In the two hundred and thirty pages of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian by Sherman Alexie, Alexie helps us experience different way to deal with things and how family and friends can help him get through his most difficult years of his life. Alexie helps us discover the way Indians feel while in the reservation, “We Indians have lost everything,” he says, “We lost our native land, we lost our languages, we lost our and dances. We lost each other. We only know how to lose and be lost,” (Alexie 173). Americans took Indian land and put them in a reserve where they didn’t know anything about and possibly caused Indians to be so angry and Americans. It is possibly a reason why Junior feels like an outsider when he transfers to Reardan. Junior has experienced a lot of...

...In Search of Goal
Do you think looking forward and trying to change a bad situation into a good one for having a better life is a wrong decision? The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-timeIndian is a novel written by Sherman Alexie. The novel is about Arnold Spirit; everyone calls him Junior. He is a teenage boy with a tough life who lives with his family in poverty on a Spokane Indian reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. He hates living in poverty and wants something better for himself. “I feel like I might grow up to be somebody important. An artist”(6) he claims. His living conditions are horrible; he studies in a school with a lack of resources. He considered the different aspects of moving to Reardan, he struggled about leaving the Rez. In the end Junior decided to leave the Rez and make a better life for himself. He must go somewhere else, somewhere that people have hope. In order to get a decent education he made the difficult decision to transfer to the privileged white school in the town of Reardan.
Leaving the Rez for a better life had a negative impact on Junior’s relationship with Rowdy. Junior and Rowdy were friends for a long time. “He is my best human friend and he cares about me” (16), “Rowdy has protected me since we were born” (17). Rowdy was the most important person in Junior’s life. By leaving the Rez, Junior lost his friend. When Junior told Rowdy about leaving the Rez he got...

...﻿The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian by Sherman Alexie
Narrative Essay – English 10 – 25 Points
Format Requirements:
Microsoft Word
No less than 500 words
No less than 5 paragraphs
1 paragraph = 5-7 sentences at least
Times New Roman
12 pt. font
Double-spaced
1” margins
Include:
Your name
Date
Home School
Essay Title
Narrative – tells a story or details an account of events
Prompt: Read the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian by Sherman Alexie, and write a narrative that describes a personal experience that relates to one of the themes represented in the novel. Your personal experience should detail an experience in which you have overcome (or are overcoming) a struggle or obstacle such as, poverty, bullying, racism, alcoholism, moving (from one place to another), abuse, death or any other struggle that the main character, Arnold Spirit, Jr., experienced.
Outline:
Introduction (1 paragraph)
Catch the reader’s attention using one of the following attention-getters (approximately 2-3 sentences):
Ask a question that relates to the topic of your essay.
Example: Have you ever been bullied?
Use a quote that could relate to your topic
Example: Never judge a book by its cover.
Give an anecdote (a short, three-to-five sentence story that teaches a lesson)
Give a fact or statistic that relates to your...

...Commentary on the contrast in the novel "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian" by Sherman Alexie between modern ideals and traditional.
Society plays a large role in everyday lives- it can dictate how one should think and act in as the “popular opinion”. With this idea in mind it is easy to think that thoughts and opinions are in unison within the world, yet this is not the case. A vast range of ethics and morals spread across the population of Earth there are bound to be both unanimous decisions and conflicts. The most pressing in aspects current events in countries around the world would be the argument of modernism and traditionalism. Progression in the world of today is not always met with open arms, and at times new ideas are rejected in favor of perpetuating the traditional way of life and its values. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian helps illustrate the timeless conflict between modern ideas and traditional values.
History is the account of events that had occurred in the past- and some people believe that traditional values should become a part of it rather than an active part of today’s world. Others do not support modern ideas and advocate for the opposite and more often than not, both these opinions are present with one another and often with ignorance on both sides. In South Korea, this...

...﻿
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian is a humours yet insightful book written by Sherman Alexie. The book is about a tale of a hydrocephalic Indian named Arnold Spirit (usually called Junior), living in an impoverished Indian reservation. Due to his medical conditions, he is always the underdog, lowest member of his society. Despite this he keeps his hope, expanding it beyond his hometown and into the wider community. Alexie incorporates many themes, such as poverty, friendship and hope, within Junior’s journey, and those ideas are most effectively conveyed with the literary technique of characterisation.
The theme of hope is prevalent throughout the novel, and Alexie conveys this message through the dialog of the characters. Back at Wellpinit, Junior does not realise the situation of the Indians. Mr P, his geometry teacher, tells him that “All [the] kids have given up … All [Junior’s] friends, all the bullies … We’re all defeated.” and that “[Junior] won’t give up.” Junior realises that he is the last person of his tribe who still can live with hope. So he leaves the reservation and enters Reardan High school. There, surrounded by those who have ambitions, he finds his own hope. Later on in the book, one can clearly see that Junior starts to understand this notion of hope and confidence, saying “we were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way [I was]...

...poverty makes people have a terrible life and fail, but poverty actually helps people to strive for more. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian by Sherman Alexie Arnold goes to Reardon because he wanted to be better, in The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid Changez goes to Princeton to get a good job so that he can support his family and live a good life, and in “The Balek Scales” by Heinrich Böll the Grandfather investigates the legibility of the scales to get more money.
Changez, like most people, saw his poverty as a restriction even though it was actually the thing that pushed him to all the great things that he did. After college Changez realized that “Princeton inspired in me the feeling that my life was a film in which I was the star and everything was possible” (Hamid 3). Changez says that Princeton was the thing that inspired him to be better and to want better things but he doesn’t yet realize that his motivation to go to Princeton came for his poverty. When Changez was getting interviewed for a well paying job directly out of school he was asked about his academic, financial and social life. At one point the interviewer, Jim, talks about money and scholarships and how it is rare to get a full scholarship for a person overseas and all Jim can say is that “‘You must have really needed the money.’ And for the third time, I said, ‘yes’” (8). This is where it clicks in Changez’ mind that the...

...Author: Tommy Suriel
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian:
Psychological Evaluation
In Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian, The main character Arnold “Junior” Spirit goes through a lot of highs and lows psychologically. In the first few chapters of the book, Junior describes how miserable his life was compared to most Indians in the reservation and how in general Indians live a very poor and miserable life compared to people who live outside of the reservation. Later on, when he starts going to a new school outside of the reservation, he goes through a way new experience that makes him see life in a more positive way but also experiences one of the worst times of his life because of how bad life is at the reservation.
While living and going to school in the reservation, the main thing that makes Junior's life very sad and miserable is his health condition. He was born with “water in the brain”(Alexie, 1) which is a condition that requires surgery. After Junior survived his surgery he grew up with a very big head, wearing thick eyeglasses and having a lisp and a stutter which according to him made him "the biggest retard in the world" (Alexie, 36) . Because of these attributes he was usually teased and beaten up by a lot of Indians. A way for him to escape a little from being...

...Absolutely True Diary of a Part-TimeIndian by Sherman Alexie is an eye opening book about the life of an Indian boy in the Reservation called Arnold Spirit Jr, or just Junior as his people call him. Junior is considered weird by his people because of many reasons. He also lead a hard life with his parents, sister, grandmother, and Rowdy as his only friend. As a baby, Junior have too much fluid in his brain that caused his thinking process to slow down, and highly susceptible to seizure. Fortunately, surgery on his head solved this problem, but with some side effect. Junior’s head is larger, one of his eye is near-sighted while the other is far sighted, his feet is also larger making him looks like a walking letter L, and he have ten extra teeth which need to be taken out in one day in order for him to eat normally(Alexie 3). However, despite of all his drawback, Junior manage to live a normal life not including the treatment from all his friend. The majority of the story is divided into two parts which show how junior grow and try to get ‘hope’. The first part is when Junior still go to school in wellpinit without any friend except Rowdy, and the second part is when Junior start going to Reardan and mingle with the white kids.By the end of the novel, Junior is a much different person than the one introduced to us at the beginning. Alexie shows us that only through constant...